Wilson G. Hunt (sidewheeler) - Vancouver Island Service

Vancouver Island Service

Hunt was extensively repaired in 1879, and in 1881 was sold to Joseph Spratt, who was running the steamboats Maude and Caribou and Fly on the east coast of Vancouver Island as the East Coast Mail Line. Captain Spratt replaced Maude with Wilson G. Hunt on the route from Victoria to Comox and Nanaimo by way of the Gulf Islands and Chemainus. By the end of 1883, Captain Spratt was forced to sell his East Coast Mail Company to Captain Irving's Canadian Pacific Navigation Company, in part because of serious mechanical problems with Wilson G. Hunt. While the public announcement by Captain Spratt, issued in the Victoria Colonist on December 8, 1883, was that the Wilson G. Hunt was only being withdrawn for repairs, in fact she had broken a shaft and was probably beyond repair. There was a story that Captain Spratt had two men bailing her out to keep her from sinking at the dock in Victoria while he negotiated the sale to Captain Irving This may have been true, but Spratt surely did not intend thereby to attempt to fool the astute Irving, who as Spratt well knew, was an excellent steamboat captain and had owned and commanded the Hunt before him. Irving replaced Hunt on the east coast route with Yosemite, another former California Gold Rush sidewheeler.